Monday, March 12, 2018

CINDERELLA: Blu-ray (Disney Inc. 2015) Walt Disney Home Video

Kenneth Branagh
directs an almost too faithful adaptation of Charles Perrault’s 1697 fable, Cinderella (2015), imbued with all the
digital wizardry capable of transforming the author’s perennially appealing ‘simple’ story into grandiloquent tripe
of the glossiest, but otherwise mostly vacuous order. What’s missing herein,
unlike Disney Inc.’s first stab in animated form, circa 1950, is heart, and
joy, and those great Mack David, Jerry Livingston, Al Hoffman songs; once heard,
never to be forgotten. It’s always disappointing to see a silk purse get
magically transformed back into a sow’s ear (or, in this case, the proverbial
coach turned pumpkin orange and smashed alongside of the road), especially when
so much obvious time and expense has been lavished on such an elaborate display
of affectation, rather than affection for the time-honored and true. And
Branagh – no stranger to storytelling of the highest order – ought to have
known better. Regrettably, Chris Weitz’s screenplay gets the featured points
right, but adds a minor twist at the end – this vicious reincarnation of Lady
Tremaine (Cate Blanchett) smashing Cinderella’s glass slipper against the stone
wall of her gloomy attic, allowing ‘Kit’ – the gallant Prince Charming (Richard
Madden) to slip the other shoe left behind at the ball onto the tender bare
foot of Lily James’ eponymous scullery girl. Stop me if you’ve heard this one
before.

It only took
Walt 75 minutes to tell his animated version with precisely the sort of lithe
enchantment Perrault’s immortal and beloved tale requires. It takes Kenneth Branagh
106 minutes to do not nearly as well, despite some stellar talent in front of
the camera thrown into this mishmash; Helena Bonham Carter (a rather dotty Fairy
Godmother), Stellan Skarsgård (the conniving Grand Duke), Derek Jacobi (an
ailing King) and Ben Chaplin as Cinderella’s doting – if thoroughly misguided
papa. Perrault’s classic tale – and the
1950 film for that matter – did not dwell for more than a sentence or two on
the circumstances of the wicked Lady Tremaine to become entrenched in Ella’s
familial home with her two mindlessly malicious offspring, Drisella (Sophie
McShera) and Anastasia (Holliday Grainger). But Branagh squanders nearly 40
minutes of precious screen time in exploring the ever-increasing misery
befallen our winsome heroine; her ousting as the rightful ‘young Miss’ of this
former merchant’s maison, relegated as a guest – and finally – no-account servant
girl in her own home. Yet, even affording the backstory such a luxury, the short
shrift from 1950 gets it more than right and covers infinitely more ground most
economically of all. In a sentence or two we could almost believe Ella’s father
was blinded by the tragic loss of his first wife (Hayley Atwell) to suspend
belief – and the good sense God gave a lemon - that he might be happy again
with the thoroughly wicked widow Tremaine.

Stretched to 40
minutes of ineffectual madness, as Tremaine populates his pastoral digs with
fair-weather sycophants – a cacophony of gamblers, gluttons and goony potential
‘next’ husbands for her two daughters – Ella’s father, increasingly finds
escape in travels abroad while he leaves his ever-devoted daughter to bear the
brunt of their envy and disgust. This leaves one deeply to suspect his motives as
well. As such, death is too good for Ella’s father and just seems like the last
straw in a terribly cruel and arduously drawn out bad joke perpetuated on our
lovely young lass. Taking a page out of Sleeping
Beauty’s playbook, Weitz retreats to the forest for Ella’s first ‘cute meet’ with Prince Charming. She is
genuine in her resolve but abstains from telling him her name. He is false – sort of – pretending to be ‘an apprentice’ instead of the heir
apparent of this far off and fictitious land. It’s still love at first sight.
But romance between the Prince and his future Princess is poorly delineated.
Walt had similar concerns in 1950, resolved by transforming hisCinderellainto a musical. You can
economize a great deal of needless doe-eyed adoration by simply inserting a
song or two to clearly delineate a character’s intensions. After all, ‘A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes.’ You
better believe it!

The real
difficulty Branagh’s Cinderellahas
is neither in overcoming the legacy of Walt’s original animated classic or even
bulldozing past the infinitely more affecting ‘re-imagining’ in Fox’s Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998) –
directed by Andy Tennant and co-starring Drew Barrymore and Dougray Scott: an
infinitely more magical coupling. In fact, it’s the opposite; Branagh
cherry-picking elements from the Disney animated feature he believes he can
make better by relocating the story from ancient France to some fanciful
principality of no particular nation known to mankind then or now, and,
populated with a healthy dollop of politically correct/non-Caucasian courtiers;
where our handsome Sport n’ Shave Ken doll of a Prince is progressively
expected to wed the suspiciously Spanish Princess Chelina of Zaragosa (Jana
Perez) in a marriage of state to secure his future empire, despite the fact she
considers his palatial digs ‘the little
kingdom’. Oh yeah...that’s definitely the way to a man’s heart. ‘Mine’s bigger than yours is.’ Not! And
into this rather serious distortion of Perrault’s classic, Branagh re-introduces
Walt’s penchant for cutesy animals; the mice, including Gus (now digitally
enhanced, though regrettably, non-verbal), the malevolent, Lucifer (only
briefly, and rather pointlessly glimpsed) and inexplicably, recasting
Cinderella’s beloved horse, Major, and adorable hound, Bruno as a pair of
lizard coach men, who use their slithery tails to trigger a drawbridge and
continue to eat flies even in their sub-human form while waiting for their
mistress to return. Yuck!

But perhaps the
worst of the misfires is Helena Bonham Carter’s Fairy Godmother, performing an
almost Beauty and the Beast-like
transformation from ‘old hag’ – slovenly dribbling cream from a cup, to an
elegant enchantress, much too flighty in her flights into fancy. In 1950’s
Walt’s cartoon incarnation was voiced by Verna Felton, whose vocalization
conveyed so much maternal warmth it was simply impossible not to fall instantly
under her spell. By contrast, Bonham Carter’s glittery gowned and
sparkle-haired goddess owes a good deal more to Billie Burke’s Glinda – the
good witch of the North from 1939’s Wizard
of Oz, except without Burke’s ability to make the height of such glamorous
frivolity appear, if not only excusable, then equally as lovable. In lieu of
generating this intangible quality of mercy and kindness, Bonham Carter merely
puts on a show with plucky sass. Her Fairy Godmother is a zeitgeist of energy
but virtually no compassion. Her forewarning to Cinderella about the stroke of
midnight stealing away all of the loveliness she has briefly wrought just seems
mean-spirited. Hurry up, girl. Time is
wasting. But have fun. The grave difficulty here is that Lily James’
doe-eyed lass is attempting to live by the precepts instilled at an early age
by her mother: above all else, be kind and courageous. The ‘message’, if one can call it that, of
the 1950 classic was simply, that ye pure of faith could reap the generous
rewards of a life well-lived by virtue of their adherence to an ethical
mindset. Branagh’s version adds soul-searching forgiveness to this mix.
Cinderella forgives Lady Tremaine her transgressions against her before
embarking upon a new life as the future Queen. But is forgiveness truly
necessary? Walt didn’t seem to think so. It was enough for him that evil, in
any of its many forms, should and could be vanquished in a penultimate
display of soft rose-petaled confetti being cast behind the marital coach.

Branagh’s Cinderella begins thus: with nearly an
hour of back story that needless elongates the narrative while stealing
precious run time from the exquisite Grand Ball sequence much later on – still,
much too short to be the impetus for the Prince’s enduring infatuation with
this ‘mystery girl’, inexplicably to have run off with his heart. We see young
Ella (Eloise Webb) having a happy childhood. Her mother, something of a
throwback to the sixties flower child, preaches courage and kindness to fight
the injustices of the world. Alas, before long, mama succumbs to an undisclosed
disease, leaving Ella and her father deeply distraught. She escapes into her
daily regiment and her books. But the master of the house can find no solace
except in the arms of another woman. If he had to pick one – why the heartless
Lady Tremaine? Surely, Ella’s father has
eyes to see beyond her fashionable trappings, and her perversely ill-mannered
and stupid daughters, Drisella and Anastasia. Not nearly as naïve, Ella
nevertheless welcomes her new stepfamily into her home, though arguably not her
heart.

A short while
later, Ella's father elects to go abroad on business, leaving his daughter to
endure Tremaine’s cruel and jealous nature. In his absence, Tremaine relocates
Ella to the attic (in the 1950 version, cramped but cozy/herein, taking on the
dank and depressing attributes of The Tower of London). Lady Tremaine also
indulges her own offspring in their teasing of the girl; nicknamed
‘Cinder-Ella’ because she has fallen asleep more than once on the tile grate
near the dying embers of the kitchen fire to keep warm. News arrives. Ella’s
father has died abroad. Heartbroken, Ella is now made to bear the brunt of Lady
Tremaine’s haughty demands. She is a servant in her own home.

Wounded by their
cruelty, a tearful Ella escapes on horseback into the nearby woods.
Inadvertently, she encounters ‘Kit’ – the crown Prince who is on a stag hunt.
Ella cautions prudence. The majestic beast should not be hunted down and
killed. Aside: we suspect PETA had something to do with this. Evidently, the
Prince is easily persuaded to see things Ella’s way. Without learning her identity,
Kit has fallen hopelessly in love with this mystery girl. Returning to the
palace and thinking with the wrong head, Kit informs his father he would pursue
this girl for his own. Alas, the King is aware his time on earth is short and
demands his son marry a lady from his own strata to expand both the wealth and
nobility of his kingdom. Despite never having met her, the King is certain the Princess
Chelina of Zaragosa will suffice for this marriage of state. To blunt the
effect, Kit has his father break with tradition by inviting virtually the
entire nation to a grand ball, at which time Kit’s marriage to Chelina will be
announced. This narrative wrinkle in Weitz’s screenplay actually blunts the
whole purpose of the ball in Perrault’s original story; namely, to act as a
sort of ’50 first dates’ by exposing
every eligible maiden in the land from which the Prince may choose for himself
his future wife.

As Lady Tremaine
has been quite successful at delaying Ella’s arrival at the ball by tearing
apart the old dress that once belonged to her mother on which Ella has lavished
her considerable skills as a seamstress, Lady Tremaine and her daughters are
equally unsuccessful at catching the Prince’s eye. Meanwhile, a tearstained
Ella is afforded a rare opportunity – to go to the palace in style a la her
very own Fairy Godmother. Arriving in a gilded coach, Ella majestically strolls
into the grand ballroom, taking everyone’s breath away. Despite her elegant
camouflage, the Prince instantly recognizes her as the self-same peasant girl
he encountered in the woods. The two share a spirited pas deux on the dance
floor before the Prince whisks Ella into the cultured gardens beyond the palace
walls. Now, he takes her to his secret garden, complete with a swing. After
several meaningless lines of genteel dialogue, the clock strikes twelve and
Ella is forced to retreat from the ball, accidentally losing one of her glass
slippers on the grand staircase as she races for the coach. The ball sequence,
and its subsequent departure into the garden is executed with such perfunctory
short shrift, one sincerely wonders what the point was to all the Fairy
Godmother’s hard work. All this magical expenditure for what barely amounts to
15 minutes of screen time – shameless and wasteful!

Barely escaping
the Grand Duke and his pursuing militia, Ella retreats home and into the
kitchen where she momentarily hides her remaining glass slipper in the
fireplace ashes, seconds before Lady Tremaine and her girls arrive. Although
Drisella and Anastasia do not suspect as much, Lady Tremaine begins to believe
the girl at the ball and Ella are one in the same. Days pass. The King dies,
though not before having had a change of heart. He orders his son to marry for
love. After a period of mourning, the Prince commences on his search for the
mystery girl. He is momentarily dissuaded by the Grand Duke to reconsider
marriage to Chelina, should the girl of his dreams not be found. The Prince
agrees, but only after his proclamation for an intense search for Ella is
announced throughout the land. Eager to fulfill her destiny, Ella hurries home
and up to the attic where she has since hidden the glass slipper – proof
positive she is the girl everyone has been talking about these many months.

Regrettably,
Lady Tremaine has beat her to this hiding spot. She smashes the glass slipper
against the attic’s stone wall, locking Ella inside and hurrying to the Grand
Duke’s offices to reveal the truth. The Prince cannot marry a scullery girl.
The Grand Duke concurs. In return for her silence, Lady Tremaine demands a
title and money to procure a lavish lifestyle for herself and her daughters.
The Grand Duke agrees to these terms. But shortly thereafter, inexplicably, he
arrives at the Tremaine household with the Prince in tow and the remaining
glass slipper to test it on the foot of all the eligible maidens who dwell
there. As Ella is still locked in the attic, the slipper is tried on Drisella
and Anastasia’s feet to no avail. Mercifully, Gus and the rest of the mice
unhinge the latch on Ella’s attic window; her lithe voice carrying down to the
courtyard just as the Prince, Grand Duke and his armies are preparing to
depart. The Prince orders the girl to try on the slipper. Predictably, it fits
and Ella, bearing no malice, forgives Lady Tremaine her many indiscretions. The
happy couple departs. When next we see them, they are man and wife, exiting to a
palace balcony to welcome the kingdom in their rejoicing. We learn Lady
Tremaine and her daughters soon left the kingdom for parts unknown and that
Ella and the Prince lived ‘happily ever after’. Did we ever doubt as much?

Re-telling such
a well-known story as Cinderella may
not leave much room for originality. In point of fact, none ought to have been
expected. But it ought to have allowed
for a margin of better character development than this. Virtually every figure
populating this gaudy milieu is a cardboard cutout, lacking the intrinsic spark
of joy to make good on the celebratory quality so essential to this
narrative. Haris Zambarloukos’s lush
cinematography shows off Dante Ferretti’s garish production design to its
fullest, with Gary Freeman’s art direction andFrancesca Loschiavo-Ferretti set
design taking center stage. Everything looks exquisite – if slightly over-stylized
and gaudy to a fault. But the style overcompensates for lack of substance. This
is not the Cinderellaof Walt’s
heart or even another distant cousin, predicated on the dreams a wishful heart
makes, once upon a star or otherwise. It’s simply a retread, lacking the
sincerity of its time-honored predecessor, and quite unable to stand on its own
merit as anything better than a needless, if occasionally visually spellbinding
update. At 106 minutes, this Cinderella decidedly
outstays its welcome. Walt’s 1950 classic knew when to graciously bow to a
fanfare of music and merriment. Were that director, Kenneth Branagh had done
the same herein. Regrets.

Walt Disney Home
Video bowed Cinderellaon Blu-ray
some years ago. I am playing catch-up these days with movies I missed the first
time around; Cinderellabeing one of
them. In hindsight, I could have easily skipped it and been as contented. There
is virtually nothing to complain about regarding this 1080p transfer. Visually,
it remains a feast, exercising a bold palette of colors and excellent contrast
levels. Everything is razor-sharp without appearing to have suffered any
untoward digital tinkering beyond the obvious Disney universe recreated mostly
from digital composites and green-screen work. Personally, I hunger for the
days when Hollywood actually had to build most of their imaginary worlds from
scratch and full-scale, with only the occasional matte painting employed to
extend their make-believe beyond its unnatural borders. The DTS 5.1 audio is as
perfect at recreating the original theatrical experience. Disney has gilded the
lily with some nicely produced extras, including a short subject and
featurettes that superficially cover the creation of this latest version from
top to bottom. Bottom line: for those who loved it, Cinderellaon Blu-ray is a treat. But I will stick to my Blu-ray of
the 1950 animated classic and be very glad its legacy long endures – hopefully,
much longer than the memory of this cheap cut-glass imitation.

About Me

Nick Zegarac is a freelance writer/editor and graphics artist. He holds a Masters in Communications and an Honors B.A in Creative Lit from the University of Windsor.
He is currently a freelance writer and has been a contributing editor for Black Moss Press and is a featured contributor to online's The Subtle Tea. He's also has had two screenplays under consideration in Hollywood.
Last year he finished his first novel and is currently searching for an agent to represent him.
Contact Nick via email at movieman@sympatico.ca